Robert M. Christie Views the Future as if Facts Matter.

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Matters in society that constitute problems for the stable operation of social institutions or populations and/or are recognized by significant groups as indicating the need for change in some parameter of social structure or process.

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Trust. Who do you know that you know you can always trust? How much does it matter to you? Do you trust your money to buy today’s value next year? Probably not. You know that several presidents have taken “executive action” to tweak the official calculation of inflation to make it look smaller than the increase in the prices you suffer at the grocery store. Now, with the current occupant of the White House caught in over 10,000 lies, how can you trust anyone anymore?

Some things are highly predictable. Others are not. As a general pattern, where I live the weather is quite hard to predict beyond the next few hours. Some days I can predict that it will not rain for the rest of the day. That happens when I have seen the voluminous data compiled into an electronic weather map that shows Santa Fe in the middle of a big high-pressure system. Easy, no rain today.

Predictability and Trust

On other days, I know with a high degree of certainty that it will rain in the area, but whether it happens at my house is a roll of the dice. I can look out west toward the Jemez Mountains and see scattered rain squalls. Whether they reach my garden is subject to a number of factors most of which change as the storm clouds approach or turn north. At that level, the weather at my house is unpredictable. It has nothing to do with trust.

Trust clearly involves predictability, but that is not all. We do not trust or mistrust the weather; we just know it is only partially predictable. When we trust a person, something more is involved – moral motivation. We can predict friends or enemies’ behavior without necessarily trusting them. We may predict an enemy’s behavior without trusting them at all.

Why? Because trust is an integral part of a relationship. The weather does not predict or trust us at all. We try to predict the weather with very limited success, not because of trust but only because of past patterns that we know are often consistent, in general, if not in any specific case. We have certain expectations of politicians, but generally, we do not trust them.

Presidential Prevarication

We can trust some politicians some of the time. That happens when we know that they hold certain values and stick to them when it comes time to vote on a bill put before the legislative body. Various politicians trust each other because they have long-standing relationships involving moral commitments some of which cross party lines. Despite the general untrustworthy character of national politics, it seems clear that politicians have to trust each other to some extent to get anything done. That, of course, is one of the reasons politicians get so little done in this era of political acrimony.

Then, throw into the mix a president who nobody trusts and who trusts nobody. Demanding total allegiance by subordinates but “throwing them under the bus” at the slightest impulse not only causes a great deal of staff turnover. It also eliminates trust as subordinates scramble to predict the next impulsive absurdity or policy blunder devoid of any expert consultation. The sycophants struggle to make sense of their own boot-licking.

Predictable Mistrust

Commentators have recently pointed out, in response to the latest act of trust violation by the pretend-autocrat, that back when impeachment threatened Nixon, he continued to sign legislation the parties considered important for the nation. The parties involved had retained a sufficient level of institutionalized trust to “work together in the nation’s interest.”

In the present instance, however, where prevarication prevails and the only value demonstrated by the president is the self-indulgence and self-aggrandizement of the modern icon of sociopathic narcissism, trust is simply out of the question.

Pelosi and Schumer ~ Vox

I doubt that Pelosi and Schumer trusted Trump to negotiate an infrastructure bill in good faith. Yet, they were duty bound to make the attempt. I get the distinct feeling that Pelosi in particular is playing the self-described ultimate player. Cornered by continued failures and court decisions upholding the constitutionalseparation of powers against his blanket assertion of total executive power, the would-be dictator flails out with increasingly erratic impulse. Even his impulse to be unpredictable is predictable. However, that is no basis for trust.

The other day, Reuters reported that Democratic presidential contender Joe Biden has developed a “middle-ground” plan for Climate Action. Well, Joe, the Climate does not compromise with corporate favorites: fracked natural gas, futuristic hopes for carbon capture technology, or nuclear power. When it comes to climate chaos, the middle ground is where total societal collapse will start.

Biden is an old-time Democrat who does not seem to understand the planetary transformation that confronts humanity today. His focus seems, as always, fixated on gaining the support of the most powerful institutions and elites in the nation while trying to charm the American voters with that toothy smile, as if the existential threat to humanity were just another campaign issue among many.

The whole point of the Green New Deal is that there is no “middle ground” when it comes to the global chaos now emerging. Profligate carbon emissions and ecosystem destabilization from the global industrial-consumer economy have already gone too far. Climate inaction has pushed us close to some critical tipping points leading to climate, ecosystem, and therefore societal collapse. Simply put, we cannot survive the collapse of the living Earth systems in which we live.

No Green New Joe

Of course, the forces of the status quo objected to the Green New Deal. To take on emerging climate chaos fully requires that we denizens of the global industrial-consumer economic bubble must change the way we live. The young members of the Sunrise Movement and the Extinction Rebellion movement know this. They do not feel constrained by the old political deal-making that kept all those representatives and senators so well healed over so many decades.

Biden is an old-fashioned “business as usual” politician. His early lead in the run-up to the Democratic primary rests primarily on name recognition and on the disproportionate attention the corporate media give him. However, Biden does carry a lot of negative political baggage. Trying to unload some at the political last minute will not work. Ask Anita Hill. His glib generalities belie a stubborn refusal to acknowledge past patriarchal practices.

Wrong Side of History

All that suggests to me that he is still the same guy – an old corporate Dem who is more concerned with cementing relations with the same old corporate and financial elites that have controlled national politics for far too long. He was on the wrong side of civil rights, mass incarceration, and the Iraq war. What more might we want to avoid? Well, his key supporters (lobbyists and big donors) have apparently formed a $60 million “dark money” group; we know that kind of fundraising does not focus on small individual donations or the interests of the American people.

If Biden’s brand of business-as-usual politics prevails and the “Ecomodernsts” control climate action, the likelihood of societal collapse and human depopulation, amidst an increasingly unrecognizable and unlivable changing planet will rapidly approach certainty. Some argue it already has.

Every time I get near the Central California Coast, I try to arrange a side trip to Cambria by the Sea. It is a beautiful little town, though rather too “touristy” these days. And, of course, the beauty of the seacoast is a major draw for this ol’ California Jubilado. But it is one simple fact that draws me to Cambria more than all the rest. The Sea Chest Oyster Bar has the best calamari in the world! The world as I have experienced it anyway. Yet, all the Costs of Calamari are greater than the price of the meal.

Anyone who enjoys seafood knows that ordering Calamari is a haphazard proposition in most restaurants, even the “best” (expensive) ones. Nearly always, you get a plate of those little deep-fried breaded rings and tentacles. They may be tender or tough, or even downright rubbery, whatever the price. I was unequivocally shocked when, during my inadvertent adventure in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, a waitress delivered a large plate of calamari strips I had bravely ordered for an appetizer. We quickly learned that they serve huge portions of everything in “T or C,” and all the people are above average…weight. Out in the middle of the southern New Mexico desert, I tasted Calamari that was in my top ten ever. I was surprised that I got strips, not rings and tentacles. They were amazingly tender and tasty. More can sometimes be better.

Best Dinner

However, the calamari strips or steaks at the Sea Chest in Cambria are clearly number one. According to Steve, who has cooked there forever, they buy their Calamari from a fishing outfit somewhere in the western Pacific. Those squid must be huge. Once tenderized and lightly breaded, the steaks range to ten inches across and about a quarter inch thick.

Watching the cooks behind the Sea Chest Oyster Bar is an entertainment in itself. They prepare everything on industrial grade high-fire stoves, mostly in large pans and pots. Scallops, halibut, crab legs, whatever, it is all fresh and delicious. A Sea Chest calamari steak is a meal in itself, so tender you can cut it effortlessly with a fork. It is lightly breaded and sautéed in butter to a golden brown. The action at the stoves among the five or six cooks is a study of efficiently orchestrated motion as they weave their motions in the small space between the prep counter behind the bar and the stoves at the back wall.

“External” Costs

So, there I was the next morning recovering from calamari overload, a once in a few years delight. Yet I wondered what the real costs of this extravaganza might be. Sure, we know that the restaurant incorporates various materials (calamari, butter, etc.), labor, rent, supplies, power, equipment maintenance, and overhead in the price of its dishes. The costs of extraction from the western Pacific, shipping, refrigeration, etc., go into the price tag as well. However, as with so many of the production processes of industrial society, the so-called “externalities” of such supply chains are not part of the equation.

I might find it difficult to calculate easily the global carbon emissions from the entire chain of energy consumption from extraction to consumption and waste in the ‘calamari trade.’ The costs of calamari were not all reflected in the price of the meal. I did not waste any of my dinner; it was too good, so I had my leftovers for breakfast. Yet, if I could calculate the external costs, how much of the $29- price of my fantastic meal would reflect the damage done to the planet?

Not much, if any, I suspect. If all the costs of the Calamari trade were included in the price of a meal, I doubt that I would ever afford to eat a calamari steak again. We must recognize that even with the best of policies responding to the converging crises of the early twenty-first century, life will not be the same. We must shape it anew. For more on carbon emissions and the costs of affluence, see other posts on www.thehopefulrealist.com.

Artificial wealth comprises the things which of themselves satisfy no natural need, for example money, which is a human contrivance.

~ St. Thomas Aquinas

Buzzwords seem to rule public discussion of just about everything. Money is no exception. Now it’s “Modern Monetary Theory.” What’s that? Well, it depends on who you ask. In modern times, debates usually center on public debt and the government’s fiscal and monetary policies.

An article in Boomberg News argued that the supporters of The Green New Deal favor Modern Monetary Theory (MMT). Critics argue that the costs of universal health care, publicly funded higher education, infrastructure buildout, and conversion to 100% renewable energy production would require unsustainable public debt. MMT supposedly sets no limits on public debt. That is apparently not quite true, but within the U.S. monetary system and corporate political squeeze on public spending, the costs of the Green New Deal, if financed by public debt, would be quite high.

Of course, if we calculate the infrastructure damage of climate chaos even if we met the limits of the Paris Accords – never mind the costs in terms of human lives – the comparative costs of implementing the Green New Deal would be trivial. In that sense, costs are relative. The underlying question is: What does society want to achieve and is it willing to pay for achieving it?

The Debt Illusion

Money is a social construction. It exists by social convention, by consensual definition. Throughout history, money has taken diverse forms, as long as the forms taken could provide the security needed for money to be money. That is why gold worked so well as currency until the global economy grew so large that the supply of gold could not keep up with the need for more currency.

Scholars have written some very large books on the nature of money and debt. How money evolved is quite fascinating. David Graeber’s book, Debt: the First 5000 Years, is quite enlightening, particularly regarding the diverse forms money has taken in history.

Public debt is not necessary; instead, it is a convention devised by bankers to control the economy of nation states. In that, the banks have succeeded.

If a sovereign nation controlled its central bank, it would not need to borrow the currency it issues since it is the sole source of authority to create money. The creation of the U.S. Federal Reserve as a banking cartelin 1913 made that impossible.

The expanding Roman Empire paid its soldiers using gold and silver coins it minted from metals mined mostly in Spain and Portugal. It did not borrow its money from anyone. Among the many causes of the fall of the Empire, was the fact that when the mines played out, the Empire could no longer satisfy its need for more coins to pay an expanding army. The operations of the Empire were stifled because it could not pay its soldiers.

Money need not be based on public debt, but in the industrial economies of the modern era, it is. That political choice enriches the banks and the corporations they fund, and it impoverishes nations. Neither supporters nor critics of Modern Monetary Theory seem to get this.

Implementing a national project or sustaining an institution is not a matter of how much debt we can tolerate. Rather, it is a matter of political will. The lavish support for the military that sustains the global modern industrial-consumer economy demonstrates that.

Fearful Fantasies and Fiat Money

To work effectively, money has to be made of a material and in a form that has some unique irreplaceable quality that makes it impossible to replicate by just anybody. That is why rare metals worked so well until economies grew so large in the modern era that the money supply could not expand enough using gold and silver.

When paper money replaced gold, the idea of “fiat money” implied that paper money was not really “real money” like gold. Nevertheless, it worked because it is hard to counterfeit, making it unreproducible by anyone other than the sovereign (for the most part).

Unnecessary debt combined with the failure to tax corporate profits creates annual deficits, which add to the national debt. The central bank creates fiat money through the sleight of hand of issuing government debt in the form of bonds as the basis of “loaning” money created out of nothing, to the government. If the sovereign issued money without the mechanism of “borrowing” from the central bank (in the U.S., the Federal Reserve) it would not create debt by issuing money.

If a sovereign issued money solely on the basis of needing to fund worthy projects, to hire the workers and buy the materials to complete the projects, the money would, as a result, circulate among the population of the nation, providing the ‘buying power’ needed to generate the goods and services people need.

National debt is unnecessary. In stark contrast, something very much like the Green New Deal is as necessary as anything can be. It is a matter of survival.

Do you remember the 2016 Republican presidential primaries? Expressions of disgust and derision for upstart outsider Trump among the party establishment and clamoring candidates were widespread. My, how times have changed. Initial faux principled “anything but Trump” stances dissembled into fake adulation and obsequious pandering by congressional Republicans to an increasingly erratic fake president.

Henchman after henchman fell to indictments by the special prosecutor. Convictions and cooperation agreements correlated with outside evidence of Trump agents’ multiple contacts and financial dealings with Russian oligarchs, and intelligence agents, and international money-laundering banks (especially Deutsche Bank). U.S. intelligence agencies had warned of Russian attempts to penetrate U.S. election databases; Russian bots and trolls deployed to Facebook and Twitter. Putin’s evil is so much more sophisticated than Trump’s narcissistic bravado that it became a national embarrassment.

Republican politicians refused to allow evidence or testimony to enter intelligence or judiciary hearings. They just repeated the “no Russian collusion” mantra, even as grand juries handed down indictments of Russian agents and their American contacts associated with Trump. ‘Pay politically to play financially’ reigned supreme as rewards for cooperating with corruption piled up and those facing reelection avoided political punishment by the nastiest elements of the Trumpist white nationalist base.

Personal Reasons for Public Irrationality

Well, of course, there are reasons why these politicians put away any principles or preferences they previously proclaimed, including basic Republican values and policy principles, such as fiscal responsibility. Just look at the rewards and punishments involved. Huge tax windfalls for wealthy senators, representatives, and their corporate sponsors rewarded submission to the petulant whims of the sociopathic narcissist. Trump’s tax bill gave away hundreds of billions to the biggest corporations and the wealthiest Americans. Mitch McConnell’s pockets got their share.

The threat of being “primaried” by aggressive PAC-funded attacks by the Trumpist base in upcoming campaigns certainly got the attention of Republican senators and representatives up for reelection in 2020. They might have considered a principled stand against executive usurpation of the constitutional authority of Congress over government spending, but not under that kind of threat. Many found the false assertion of a “national emergency” as cover for commandeering funds designated for military projects both repugnant and blatantly unconstitutional. Yet, they buried their principles to secure their personal political position.

A few voted in support of the bill to overturn the proclaimed “national emergency,” mostly out of fear that the precedent could result in a future Democratic president pulling the same stunt to achieve some progressive purpose, such as funding the hated Green New Deal. That is not the art of the deal; it is extortion. It is not that such tactics are rare in Washington politics. Nor is it simply a matter of traditional “gridlock” in the national legislature.

Pathology of Policy

When a narcissistic sociopath “makes policy,” you can be sure that the origin and intent have to do with self-aggrandizement, not the public interest. I have not fact-checked the story that Trump’s obsession with “the wall” began when campaign aides suggested it as a way to make him remember to mention the “threat” of immigration. But it fits the profile. The meme took off and he happily continues to exploit it.

Generating fear of the other is a classic tactic of would-be dictators and tyrants. So is endless repetition of the “big lie.” The flow of illegal immigrants across the southern border has steadily decreased for a long time. Most drug smuggling occurs at the biggest ports of entry. Would-be terrorists from the Middle East have boarded airliners in Europe or elsewhere with false documents, headed for major American cities.

So, what’s with the wall? Its basic function is to generate fear and hatred to distract from the damage done to the nation by kleptocratic corruption at the very top – a classic tactic of tyrants.

Age seems to bring on associations with drugs the doctors say we need. Most are not addictive, though many don’t do much good and often have unwanted “side effects.” Sometimes the “side effects” are front and center! One of the discomforts of being a Jubilado (retiree, if you don’t know the word, en español) is the experience of the death of others in one’s own age group.

Few of us plan much for our death or that of others. When I hear that a member of my generation who is younger than me has passed away, it is especially disconcerting. Of course, we all must go eventually, but for myself, I’d rather it be later. When, later? Who knows? Just later.

Unplanned Death

But it is a matter of an entirely different order when we hear of a death of someone much younger, whom we have known since his birth. At our age, we find ourselves on the way to another medical appointment with uncanny frequency. On one such occasion at 8:30 AM, about three years ago, while slogging through South Bay traffic to a UCLA imaging facility in Santa Monica, I got a call from a very close long-time friend, who abruptly told me her son had just died of a drug overdose. He was 30 years old; I was around when he was born.

“What?” I could not process what I heard. I had planned to visit her late the next day. “You can come over any time tomorrow; I’m not going to the gym.” With that veiled plea for me to come over sooner, she could not talk anymore right then. In all the years I had known her, since the early 1970s, she had never been at a loss for words. In that stop-and-go traffic on Pacific Coast Highway, so was I. I spent the rest of the week with her, working through all the many details of dealing with a death too soon.

You just never know. I will not go into the details of a very vibrant young man’s death from an overdose of a mix of new designer drugs, or his girlfriend’s that followed. But from what I hear, a wave of such young deaths has swept the East Coast, then the West, in recent years. “Progress through chemistry” keeps the overseas illicit manufacturers ahead of the drug laws. So does the Internet, where rogue drugs produced somewhere in Asia without quality controls and at unknown strengths are purchased through distributors in other countries. Ironic. We seek solutions to all our problems through new technology and we create more problems with newer technologies, including the Internet.

Addictions and Illusions

Portugal abandoned its “war on drugs” years ago. Drug use has significantly declined there. When addiction does occur, authorities treat it as the “behavioral health” problem that it is; the patient is often freed of addiction or learns how to live with it. Unfortunately, we in the U.S. live in a punitive society where “treatment” is something that is done to the patient; it is not so much done by the patient. It often fails, just like the mass incarceration that pretends to be the “rehabilitation” of those caught by law enforcement self-medicating with illegal drugs.

In our U.S. culture of profit over everything – into which the drug business fits so well – we treat our environment just like we treat children, and adults for that matter, who may have problems. We may treat symptoms, but rarely their causes, wondering why the problem persists. We punish indiscriminately. We find enemies everywhere, or we create them. Pablo Escobar and “Chapo” were products of the U.S. War on Drugs.

Contradictions of Denial

Terrorists arise in resistance to the invasions and occupations of our fossil-fueled global empire – a collective addiction. Death and destruction are products of our alienation from the living Earth we inhabit. That is why we can’t get a grip on the climate crisis we created by our alienated culture of extractive capital and wasteful consumerism. And, of course, we deny it all and project blame onto the enemies we have created. Addiction is the goal of marketing, which leads to diverse forms of illness or death. We need a new “culture war.” The culture of life must win over the culture of death. The alternative is a dead end.

As Republicans try to drive a wedge between “centrist” and progressive Democrats, the Democrats might not need any help to achieve failure. They are well on the way to falling flat in front of the unique challenges they face in a bizarre couple of years running up to the 2020 presidential election.

Party Palliatives

DNC operatives and their favorites, the candidates who spout conventionally “liberal” slogans yet act like Reagan Republicans still control the Democratic Party. They take large corporate donations and “dark money” that tie them to the neoliberal economic thrust that takes us closer to full-blown climate chaos each day. Well, actually, the crisis is here and it is now.

In the run-up to the 2016 debacle, I remember seeing a survey posted online by Senator Keith Ellison asking Democrats to respond with their three top priorities for the Democratic Party Platform. The list provided did not include any mention of climate action, the overwhelmingly denied and ignored yet most critical issue of our time. Here is the list:

Raising the minimum wage

Civil rights

Making college more affordable

Protecting women’s health care choices

Immigration reform

Protecting and expanding Social Security

Overturning Citizens United

Reducing economic inequality

Wall Street accountability and consumer protection

Common-sense gun reform

Affordable housing

Criminal justice reform

Other

Okay, these are all issues that call for political action to achieve a livable society – in the abstract. Each is general enough that a politician could proclaim allegiance to taking action on it without actually having to do anything. The climate silence was deafening. The current listing of issues in the 2016 Party Platform on the party website does mention “Combat Climate Change,” briefly in the middle of the list. Once Bernie from contention, the greatest existential threat to humanity ever, Hillary mostly ignored it through the campaign. However, fear of a Trumpist future caused the 2018 midterm elections to blow a fresh new breeze into the U.S. House of Representatives.

Here Come the New Progressives

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) rapidly emerged as the face of the new progressive Democrats elected to the House in the midterms. Her unexpected trouncing of an old-line centrist incumbent in the primary quickly became the icon of new progressive thinking among the new representatives, who are mostly women of color.

A good measure of their impact and importance for possibly bringing the Democratic Party into the twenty-first century is the outrage and disdain expressed by Republicans at AOC’s very presence. Her highly articulate and charming outspoken expression of progressive values and her specific legislative proposals took the media’s attention away from the old party hacks.

The new progressives have already proposed a Green New Deal and helped shape HR-1, the bill that would take back control of politics from Big Money and give it to the people through electoral reform and other measures to protect democracy from the corporate state. Mitch McConnell predictably called it a “power grab,” yes, they replied, a power grab for the people.

The Struggle is On

The Corporate Democrats are not about to give up. They have already joined Republicans in attacking Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) for her calling out knee-jerk American political support for Israeli oppression and war crimes against the Palestinians. Omar had tried to distinguish between anti-semitism – of which anyone who criticizes Israel’s policies is accused – and reasoned and principled foreign policy by the U.S. But the women of color who expressed their solidarity at the State of the Union address by wearing white in honor of the original suffragettes, are strong and they are not about sit down and shut up as subservient freshmen representatives.

The American people are wising up. They see the catastrophic climate changes already accelerating around the world. They can no longer imagine the U.S. as a sanctuary for the industrial-consumer “lifestyle” in a world of growing chaos. The Democrats would do very well to acknowledge the extreme existential threat we face and make it the centerpiece of their platform. But the new progressives must take control of the party if it is to represent the interests of the American people.